“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.” - George W. Bush

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

More Israeli terror bombing attacks against civilian areas of Gaza, using US supplied F-16s of course. You wont see any ground patrols from the IDF or street to street urban fighting, “US marine style”. The Israelis prefer US armor and warplanes and the credit cards extended to them by the US Conga Line

Gaza: at least 19 killed and 90 injured as another UN school is hit

UN official condemns ‘in the strongest possible terms this serious violation of international law by Israeli forces’

(Reuters) - Israel killed at least 19 Palestinians sheltering in a school in Gaza's biggest refugee camp on Wednesday, a U.N. official said, as Egyptian mediators prepared a revised proposal to try to halt more than three weeks of fighting.

Some 3,000 Palestinians, including many women and children, were taking refuge in the building in Jebalya refugee camp when it came under fire around dawn, Khalil al-Halabi, director of northern Gaza operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said.

"There were five shells - Israeli tank shells - which struck the people and killed many of them as they slept. Those people came to the school because it a designated U.N. shelter,” he said.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said militants had fired mortar bombs from the vicinity of the school and troops fired back in response. The incident was still being reviewed.

UNRWA said on Tuesday it had found a cache of rockets concealed at another Gaza school - the third such discovery since the conflict began. It condemned unnamed groups for putting civilians at risk.

In addition to the 19 dead, some 125 people were wounded at the Jabalya school, including five in critical condition, Halabi said. An UNRWA source said the agency had recovered fragments from the shells.

Blood splattered floors and mattresses inside classrooms, and some survivors picked through shattered glass and debris for flesh and body parts to bury.

Israel has been shelling in Jebalya, where some 120,000 people live, since Tuesday, in what the chief Israeli military spokesman, Brigadier-General Motti Almoz, described as a slight broadening of its campaign against militants in the Hamas Islamist-dominated Gaza Strip.

Israeli tank fire also struck the main market in Jebalya on Wednesday, killing at least three people and wounding 40 others, the Gaza Health Ministry said. Seven members of one family died in an Israeli attack in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip.

The ministry said 1,270 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed since Israel began its offensive on July 8 with the declared aim of halting cross-border rocket fire.

In ground operations launched 10 days later, the army has said its main mission is to locate and destroy tunnels that militants have built under the frontier and have used to launch attacks inside Israel.

On the Israeli side, 53 soldiers and three civilians have been killed. Public support remains strong for continuing the operation in the hope of preventing future flareups.

HAMAS DEFIANT

Mohammed Deif, the shadowy leader of Hamas's armed wing, said in a broadcast message on Tuesday that Palestinians would continue confronting Israel until its blockade on Gaza - which is supported by neighboring Egypt - was lifted.

Five rockets were fired from Gaza at Israel on Wednesday, landing harmlessly in open areas, police said.

Israel has balked at freeing up Gaza's borders under any de-escalation deal unless Hamas's disarmament is also guaranteed.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to review progress with his security cabinet later on Wednesday, and a Palestinian delegation was expected in Cairo for discussions on an elusive truce.

In previous bouts of fighting between Israel and its neighbors, the United States has often leaned on the Israelis to stop after incidents that cause high civilian casualties. Washington appears to have less sway with either side this time.

Egypt said on Tuesday it was revising an unconditional ceasefire proposal that Israel had originally accepted but Hamas rejected, and that a new offer would be presented to the Palestinian representatives.

UNRWA, the main U.N. relief agency in Gaza, said it was at "breaking point" with more than 200,000 Palestinians having taken shelter in its schools and buildings following calls by Israel for civilians to evacuate whole neighborhoods before military operations.

Both U.S. President Barack Obama and the U.N. Security Council have called for an immediate ceasefire to allow relief to reach Gaza's 1.8 million Palestinians, followed by negotiations on a more durable end to hostilities.

Efforts led by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry last week failed to achieve a breakthrough, and the explosion of violence appeared to dash international hopes of turning a brief lull for the Muslim Eid al-Fitr festival into a longer-term ceasefire.

In a statement on Wednesday, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he was "extremely concerned about the escalating fighting in and around Gaza" in which civilian infrastructure and U.N. facilities have come under fire.

"Everything must be done to prevent civilian victims and to uphold humanitarian law," he said. "I urge both sides to agree to an immediate ceasefire and to resume negotiations about a long-term ceasefire on the basis of the Egyptian suggestions."

Pierre Krahenbuhl, commissioner-general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, condemned “in in the strongest possible terms this serious violation of international law by Israeli forces”.

He said in a statement: “Last night, children were killed as they slept next to their parents on the floor of a classroom in a UN-designated shelter in Gaza. Children killed in their sleep; this is an affront to all of us, a source of universal shame. Today the world stands disgraced.

“We have visited the site and gathered evidence. We have analysed fragments, examined craters and other damage. Our initial assessment is that it was Israeli artillery that hit our school, in which 3,300 people had sought refuge. We believe there were at least three impacts.

t was the sixth time that UNRWA schools had been struck, he added. “Our staff, the very people leading the humanitarian response are being killed. Our shelters are overflowing. Tens of thousands may soon be stranded in the streets of Gaza, without food, water and shelter if attacks on these areas continue.”

At the school, Assad Sabah said he and his five children were huddling under desks in one of the classrooms because of the constant sound of tank fire throughout the night.

“We were scared to death,” he told the Associated Press. “After 4.30am, tanks started firing more. Three explosions shook the school. One classroom collapsed over the head of the people who were inside.”

A spokeswoman from the Israel Defence Forces said that its initial inquiries showed that “Hamas militants fired mortar shells from the vicinity of the school, and [Israeli] soldiers responded by firing towards the origins of the fire”. An investigation was continuing, she added.

A UN source said there was no evidence of militant activity inside the school.

"You wont see any ground patrols from the IDF or street to street urban fighting, “US marine style”. The Israelis prefer US armor and warplanes and the credit cards extended to them by the US Conga Line"

Cowards and Greedy slurs all in ONE sentence... Amazing but not a new low for the bar...

No Israeli “ boots on the grounds” looking for the bad guys. Don’t look for real soldiers trying to fight an urban war, doing their best to avoid non-combatants. That is not how the IDF does it. They are not US marines. This is more their style:

The last two nights have seen the most fierce bombardment in this Gaza offensive, with inense air strikes, tank shelling and bombardment from Israeli gunboats. In 23 days more than 1,240 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed. On the Israeli side 53 soldiers and three civilians have been killed.

The Israelis don’t exactly pay for the US supplied artillery and planes being used against the Palastinian civilians. The US arms are an Israeli entitlement program payed for by the US taxpayer. We pay for this carnage whether we like it or not. We give them political cover and we tell the rest of the World to avert their lying eyes away from the US financed Israeli slaughter of the Gaza prison camp.

Caroline Glick is the Senior Contributing Editor at The Jerusalem Post, the author of The Israeli Solution: A One State Plan for Peace in the Middle East, and an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Security Policy. She was scheduled to speak on Capitol Hill a couple of weeks ago, however her speech was delayed until this week because the war broke out.

In the embedded video below she speaks for the first 35 minutes, after which there is a Q&A that is just as substantive as her talk.

Glick covers a range of urgent topics including the war between Hama and Israel, U.S. foreign policy, and European economic boycotts against Israel. She explains how the Obama administration is supporting Hamas all the way down to pushing Hamas’s ceasefire proposal as their own. She speaks of the enormous and complex pressure Israel is under, fighting two wars on two fronts: Hamas on the ground and the West’s threat to destroy Israel’s economy if she continues to defend herself and fight Hamas.

She speaks about how the threat of Hamas is not just a threat against Israel, not just a threat against Jews, not just a threat against the United States, but a threat against civilization.

At the end of her talk, at around the 32-minute mark, she outlines what we can do, and must do, to shift the dangerous direction the Obama administration is taking things with respect to Israel.

Ask Congress why the United States is on the UN Human Rights Committee – a sham that mocks the very notion of human rights. Put a hold on funding for the UN Human Rights Committee. And if they continue to act as a “Kafkaesque tribunal against the Jewish people” then defund the United Nations. (The United States funds 22% of the UN budget.) As Europe expands its government-sponsored economic warfare against Israel, pass legislation that says those countries involved in such boycotts will not receive federal contracts and cannot do business with the American government. There must be clear congressional warnings to European countries involved in boycotts against Israel. The Commerce Committee must make it clear those European countries enacting anti-Semitic legislation will pay a price if they continue to do so. Make sure the Armed Services Committee is monitoring whether there are any Israeli requests for spare parts (for F16’s, for example) that are not being fulfilled. Ensure that all Israeli requests for spare parts in a time of war are not questioned, are automatic, and are fulfilled quickly so Israel need not fear they won’t be able to defend themselves. Call on Congress to investigate why the FAA closed Ben Gurion airport to ensure this kind of collusion with Hamas to harm the Israeli economy during a time of war doesn’t occur again. Make sure the Palestinian Authority is not funded. Though the Appropriations Subcommittee of the Foreign Relations Committee did not put aid to the Palestinian Authority for fiscal year 2015, they already have language in the explanatory notes related to a presidential waiver for allowing that aid to move forward. This suggests that Congress assumes that aid will be restored at some point during the mark-up process. The language needs to be clear and unequivocal: no aid to the Palestinian Authority. Period.

A right-wing Israeli mob has been caught on film seemingly celebrating the deaths of Palestinian children in Operation Protective Edge. Over 1,200 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s latest offensive, including over 200 children.

The video uploaded onto YouTube on Saturday shows a group of right-wing Israeli activists celebrating the Israeli Defense Force’s incursion into Gaza.“Tomorrow there’s no teaching in Gaza, they don’t have any children left,” chanted the protesters, waving Israeli flags.

It is an Israeli Myth that Hamas use the civilians of Gaza as 'human shields'Jeremy Bowen, BBC Middle East editor:"I saw no evidence during my week in Gaza of Israel's accusation that Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields."

The Guardian: "In the past week, the Guardian has seen large numbers of people fleeing different neighbourhoods.. and no evidence that Hamas had compelled them to stay"

The Independent: "Some Gazans have admitted that they were afraid of criticizing Hamas, but none have said they had been forced by the organisation to stay in places of danger and become unwilling human-shields."

Reuters, 2013: "A United Nations human rights body accused Israeli forces on Thursday of mistreating Palestinian children, including by torturing those in custody and using others as human shields."

"O"rdure is just repeating the Zionists lies, which are laid bare by the reporters on the ground.

Like rats, the Hamas has dug tunnels to "pop" up in Israeli civilian areas, with the express intent to murder, rape, dismember or kidnap Jews.

Crawling out of their holes... Of course, Iran has spent a billion dollars, UNRWA's supplies and even concrete imported into the strip because of pressure the west put on Israel, has gone to build the rat's nest under Gaza....

Even as Obamacare continues to be attacked by foes and challenged in court, hospital chains and insurers are making more money, more patients using ERs are paying for their care, and the country as a whole is enjoying slower growth in its health-care spending.

HCA Holdings Inc. (HCA), the largest for-profit hospital chain, yesterday raised its forecast and reported a 6.6 percent drop in uninsured patients at its 165 hospitals, a reduction that grows to 48 percent in four states that expanded Medicaid, a top initiative of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. WellPoint Inc. (WLP), which made the biggest commitment of any publicly traded insurer to the Obamacare markets, raised its guidance today after handily beating analyst estimates for the quarter on rising membership linked to the overhaul.

Taxpayers too may be benefiting from the law approved in 2010. Medicare spending rose by just $1 per beneficiary in 2013, the fourth year in a row . . . . . . . .

Hamas has to keep those human shields in place! Gazans look like they are getting fed up with being human shields. The people of Gaza have repeatedly voted Hamas into power to govern them so what is there to do? If you really want to help the people in Gaza, then destroy Hamas. Maybe Hamas won’t do so well in the Gaza elections next time.

Pardon the hyperbole with the bottle rockets comment but it is appropriate in response to a speech where Glick sees the potential for Hamas bringing about the 'end of the world as we know it.'

Glick is a war-monger and a propagandist as anyone who reads the JP knows and her speech us a fitting contribution to The American Thinker

Obumble just keeps rolling this stuff out, just as yesterday he put up an extended article by Jonathan F. Keiler, an ex-military lawyer, teacher, and author of alternative history (Upfall Jun 5, 2012) who argues that Israel is not guilty of of any war crimes because Israel is not guilty of any war crimes.

I apologize myself, I had to run to the store and was in a hurry. I called Glick a warmonger which was unfair given the articles I have read of her. However, there is no doubt she is propagandist and a supporter of the current right-wing government policies.

Also, if what Obumble put up is an accurate statement of her comments (always a tough call given it was printed in In the American Thinker) then she is also acutely overweening, arrogant, and presumptuous in her 'demands' on US foreign policy.

At the end of her talk, at around the 32-minute mark, she outlines what we can do, and must do, to shift the dangerous direction the Obama administration is taking things with respect to Israel.

Ask Congress why the United States is on the UN Human Rights Committee – a sham that mocks the very notion of human rights.Put a hold on funding for the UN Human Rights Committee. And if they continue to act as a “Kafkaesque tribunal against the Jewish people” then defund the United Nations. (The United States funds 22% of the UN budget.)As Europe expands its government-sponsored economic warfare against Israel, pass legislation that says those countries involved in such boycotts will not receive federal contracts and cannot do business with the American government. There must be clear congressional warnings to European countries involved in boycotts against Israel. The Commerce Committee must make it clear those European countries enacting anti-Semitic legislation will pay a price if they continue to do so.Make sure the Armed Services Committee is monitoring whether there are any Israeli requests for spare parts (for F16’s, for example) that are not being fulfilled. Ensure that all Israeli requests for spare parts in a time of war are not questioned, are automatic, and are fulfilled quickly so Israel need not fear they won’t be able to defend themselves.Call on Congress to investigate why the FAA closed Ben Gurion airport to ensure this kind of collusion with Hamas to harm the Israeli economy during a time of war doesn’t occur again.Make sure the Palestinian Authority is not funded. Though the Appropriations Subcommittee of the Foreign Relations Committee did not put aid to the Palestinian Authority for fiscal year 2015, they already have language in the explanatory notes related to a presidential waiver for allowing that aid to move forward. This suggests that Congress assumes that aid will be restored at some point during the mark-up process. The language needs to be clear and unequivocal: no aid to the Palestinian Authority. Period.

Quirk: GazaThe size of Las Vegas50% of the population is under 1870% of the population consists of women and children80% live in povertyAnd against Israel's F-16s, drones, tanks, and Iron Dome Hamas uses AK47s and bottle rockets.

My comments were about Israel and Gaza not the US. I have spend plenty of posts here complaining about US policy in Afghanistan. I still post questioning why we are still there 6 years after Obama took office.

You also seem to forget that my post was in response to Glick's idiotic claim that Hamas represent not just a threat against Jews, not just a threat against the United States, but a threat against civilization.

Deuce has stated clearly the ONLY way there will be peace (from his side of the argument) is the total dismantling of Israel and the renaming and taking over of all the land into a majority ruled arab nation, where jews can live as a minority under the good graces of the arabs, but as deuce has said, there are scores to be settled and payback is a bitch.

This point of view of course is very similar to the Hamas who said this week: Hamas leadership have re-iterated that their goal is to destroy Israel entirely. Hamas will never live with a two-state solution.

So with that as a the basic stance of BOTH hamas and deuce, why would Israel NOT seek the destruction of the Hamas in it's entirety? REGARDLESS of the tragedy of the civilians that killed?

Israel does NOT target civilians, but they do die when they are used by Hamas as shields or are in the wrong place. SHIT happens.

Now Hamas (and Deuce) fully want to see as many jews killed as possible, This is evident since Deuce will never post anything about the hundreds of attempts to murder civilians in Israel on a hourly basis. But Deuce's and Hamas's goal remain the same.

The destruction of the State of Israel and the killing of all Jews.

Deuce of course would loudly protest my assertion that he is an anti-semite. BUt that doesn't stop deuce from inciting readers of this blog to hate the "corrupt jewish american" lobby or american zionists, or american jewish leaders…

It's a short jump from hatred of Israel to out and out calling for Jews's heads on a pike….

Just as the riots/marches in europe and chicago prove, it aint a border dispute.

"death to the jews" "hitler was right" signs say it all…

Even here, Deuce tolerates JackRat's (primarily) attempts to delegitimize who and what the Jewish people are.

All the while 30 times the amount, in the arab world, of kids, babies, women and old men are being butchered on purpose and nary is there any outcry.

Nor is there any outcry of the executions of palestinians by Hamas (recently and/or when Hamas was elected and tossed off roof tops fatah members), nor the child executions in the forced labor for the tunnels…

Interesting world view ya got there fellow…

I only hope you understand that Israel and the Jews, take your wishes and Hamas's threats and actions as the honest death wishes they are…

Who is the 'fellow' you are talking about here. I assumed it was someone other than me so I didn't offer a response; however, I see it followed closely after our previous discussion of 'Quirk's useless stats'.

Deuce has stated clearly the ONLY way there will be peace (from his side of the argument) is the total dismantling of Israel and the renaming and taking over of all the land into a majority ruled arab nation, where jews can live as a minority under the good graces of the arabs, but as deuce has said, there are scores to be settled and payback is a bitch.

This point of view of course is very similar to the Hamas who said this week: Hamas leadership have re-iterated that their goal is to destroy Israel entirely. Hamas will never live with a two-state solution.

So with that as a the basic stance of BOTH hamas and deuce, why would Israel NOT seek the destruction of the Hamas in it's entirety? REGARDLESS of the tragedy of the civilians that killed?

Israel does NOT target civilians, but they do die when they are used by Hamas as shields or are in the wrong place. SHIT happens.

Now Hamas (and Deuce) fully want to see as many jews killed as possible, This is evident since Deuce will never post anything about the hundreds of attempts to murder civilians in Israel on a hourly basis. But Deuce's and Hamas's goal remain the same.

The destruction of the State of Israel and the killing of all Jews.

Deuce of course would loudly protest my assertion that he is an anti-semite. BUt that doesn't stop deuce from inciting readers of this blog to hate the "corrupt jewish american" lobby or american zionists, or american jewish leaders…

It's a short jump from hatred of Israel to out and out calling for Jews's heads on a pike….

Just as the riots/marches in europe and chicago prove, it aint a border dispute.

"death to the jews" "hitler was right" signs say it all…

Even here, Deuce tolerates JackRat's (primarily) attempts to delegitimize who and what the Jewish people are.

All the while 30 times the amount, in the arab world, of kids, babies, women and old men are being butchered on purpose and nary is there any outcry.

Nor is there any outcry of the executions of palestinians by Hamas (recently and/or when Hamas was elected and tossed off roof tops fatah members), nor the child executions in the forced labor for the tunnels…

Interesting world view ya got there fellow…

I only hope you understand that Israel and the Jews, take your wishes and Hamas's threats and actions as the honest death wishes they are…

You then had the balls to write:"Deuce has stated clearly the ONLY way there will be peace (from his side of the argument) is the total dismantling of Israel and the renaming and taking over of all the land into a majority ruled arab nation, where jews can live as a minority under the good graces of the arabs,..."

What a load of shit. You don't even have the courtesy to provide snips and cuts of Deuces writing but, rather, make erroneous statements of what he has written.

You are a propagandist but not a good one. Just because you say something doesn't mean people believe it. Well, Boobie might but if that pleases you - indulge.

The Kaiser Family Foundation has a new survey (pdf) on Obamacare in California, and it’s full of remarkably good news. For those who haven’t been following this, CA — with its now-dominant Democratic Party — is where Obamacare was implemented the way it was supposed to be implemented: the website worked pretty well from the beginning, Medicaid expansion was implemented, and the state worked hard on outreach. It was also a place that really needed reform: the uninsured were a high percentage of the population, and an individual market without community rating meant that the mere hint of a preexisting condition was enough to prevent coverage.

So it now appears that most of California’s uninsured — 58 percent of the total, or well over 60 percent of those eligible (because undocumented immigrants aren’t covered) have gained insurance in the first year. Considering the complexity of the scheme, that’s really impressive, and it strongly suggests that next year, once those who missed out have had a chance to learn via word of mouth, California will have gotten much of the way toward universal coverage for legal residents.

Justin Wolpers calls our attention to the latest IGM survey of economic experts, which revisits the question of the efficacy of fiscal stimulus. IGM has been trying to pose regular questions to a more or less balanced panel of well-regarded economists, so as to establish where a consensus of opinion more or less exists. And when it comes to stimulus, the consensus is fairly overwhelming: by 36 to 1, those responding believe that the ARRA reduced unemployment, and by 25 to 2 they believe that it was beneficial.

This is, if you think about it, very depressing.

Wolfers is encouraged by the degree of consensus — economics as a discipline is not as quarrelsome as its reputation. But I think about policy and political discourse, and note that policy has been dominated by pro-austerity views while stimulus has become a dirty word in politics.

What this says is that in practical terms the professional consensus doesn’t matter. Alberto Alesina may be literally the odd man out, the only member of the panel who doesn’t believe that the fiscal multiplier is positive — but back when key decisions were being made, it was “Alesina’s hour” in Europe and among Republicans.

You might want to say that the professional consensus was rejected because it didn’t work. But actually it did. Mainstream macroeconomics made some predictions — deficits wouldn’t drive up interest rates in a depressed economy, “fiat money” wouldn’t be inflationary, austerity would lead to economic contraction — that drew widespread scorn; Stephen Moore at the WSJ (which was predicting soaring rates and inflation) dismissed “fancy theories” that “defy common sense.” The fancy theorists were, of course, right — but nobody who rejected the consensus has changed his mind. Oh, and Moore became the chief economist at Heritage.

So, two thoughts. One is a point I think I’ve made before. You fairly often hear people describe . . . . .

Is the world giving up on a two-state solution?posted at 1:21 pm on July 30, 2014 by Noah Rothman

CNN’s foreign affairs guru, Fareed Zakaria, is melancholic.

The violence in Gaza, he is convinced, will not abate so long as the people of the Gaza Strip have no hope. He is convinced that Gaza residents will forever despair in their prospects not because of the lack of civil society, basic public services, or cultural brutality that has characterized life in the Strip since the terror group Hamas was elected to serve as the governing authority. No. For Zakaria, Gaza residents lack for hope because theirs is not a formally recognized state.

He expressed his despondency in a recent interview with CNN’s New Day:

In the long term I would say the problem is this – what is his strategy? At the end of the day, you have the occupation for 47 years. In 2008, Ehud Olmert had a similar war against Gaza. I was more sympathetic then, because Olmert was engaged in a serious negotiation with the Palestinians to try to create a two-state solution. Benjamin Netanyahu has done essentially no negotiating with the Palestinians on that front. So it’s fair to say you are right in the short term, but what is the long-term strategy? Are you going to be back here a year from now, five years from now?

On Tuesday, Zakaria echoed his lament over the lack of any serious push for a two-state solution amid a war. He noted that anti-Hamas forces have been trying to neutralize that group by military means for 20 years with no success. It seems absurd to suggest that a strategy that has failed for 20 years should be replaced with a strategy that has failed for 60 years, and an increasing number of serious international actors are coming to that same conclusion.

According to British Prime Minster David Cameron, the “facts on the ground” are “beginning to make a two-state solution impossible.”

This statement comes months after Secretary of State John Kerry sounded a note of skepticism about the increasingly unviability of a two-state solution. “I think we have some period of time—in one to one-and-a-half to two years—or it’s over,” the secretary said at a House hearing months before the latest conflict.

What has been become clear in recent weeks, even for those only marginally familiar with the geopolitical landscape in the Levant, is that a two-state solution is no longer viable because the world is essentially dealing with three distinct political entities in this region. In spite of a recently concluded power-sharing deal between Hamas and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, Gaza and the West Bank are no longer one state divided but two states with divergent political cultures and contradictory governments.

This conclusion has been on display since the start of this conflict and has become inescapable in recent days.

On Tuesday, Nabil Shaath, a former Palestinian Authority foreign minister, was blindsided live on CNN with the news Hamas had just rejected a ceasefire proposal put forward by authorities in the West Bank. His shock and confusion was visibly apparent.

The divergence in preferred tactics between PA officials and Hamas was on display yet again on Wednesday when Palestinian Parliament Member and former presidential candidate, Mustafa Barghouti, essentially condemned Hamas’s terms of engagement.

In spite of his effort to devote all of his censure to Israeli behavior, Barghouti’s admission that Hamas and/or Islamic Jihad storing weapons of war in schools represent a “violation” of international law is significant. This is the kind of rhetoric that one does not hear coming out of Gaza.

Though they remain one people with a unified culture, the West Bank and Gaza are divided today by both geography and politics. More tenuous circumstances than those have catalyzed the founding of independent and sovereign states in the past.

The two-state solution may not be entirely dead, but it does seem to have outlived its usefulness.

Looks like the boobie has run away - scared. I'll post all them words anyway:

"Israel and Gaza: With rights come responsibilities.Paul Heinbecker Special to The Globe and Mail

Paul Heinbecker, Canada’s last ambassador to serve on the United Nations Security Council, is a former chief foreign policy adviser to prime minister Brian Mulroney. He is currently with Laurier University and the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Ont.

“Canada believes that Israel has every right to defend itself, by itself, from such belligerent acts of terrorism” (Foreign Minister John Baird, July 8).

True, and accepted by most of the international community, with a caveat: with rights come responsibilities.

A central responsibility, in fact a legal obligation of any belligerent in conflict, is to distinguish between civilians and legitimate military targets. Indiscriminate military action is prohibited, as is the deliberate targeting of civilians (Hamas’s indiscriminate rocketing of Israel communities is prima facie a war crime). International law acknowledges that civilian casualties might occur when military targets are attacked, but it requires warring parties to minimize injury and death among civilians. Complexity gives no dispensation from this principle, nor does the unlawful behaviour of the other side.

Further, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, the statutory guardian of international humanitarian law, “if an attack is expected to cause ‘collateral civilian damages’ that are excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated, it must be cancelled or suspended” (ICRC–“International law on the conduct of hostilities: overview”).

The Israeli government thus has the right of self-defence under international law but its exercise of that right must itself comport with international law. The Israeli forces, with their vastly superior technology and firepower have a special responsibility when selecting targets in Gaza.

Gaza is a densely populated narrow strip of land of about 10 by 50 kilometers. It is penned in by closed Israeli and Egyptian borders and an Israeli blockade at sea. Unlike refugees fleeing e.g., Syria, Gazans have nowhere to go. Even before the current round of war, Gaza was described by British Prime Minister Cameron, as an open-air “prison camp”. It has no airport, the Israelis impose extremely tight restrictions on travel abroad and they have sharply curtailed imports and exports. Gaza is also dirt poor, with 40 per cent of the population unemployed and 80 per cent receiving some form of food aid. As observed by Yuval Diskin former head of Israel’s internal security service Shin Bet “When people lose hope for an improvement of their situation, they radicalize… The Gaza Strip is the best example of that.”

By July 27, 999 Palestinians had been killed. At least 760 were civilians, just over 75 per cent of the total death toll (UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs). Almost as many children had been killed as combatants. Injuries totalled more than 6,233. Twenty-two hospitals, clinics and medical centres have been damaged by shelling. Forty-six Israelis have been killed, including two civilians. According to the Israeli forces’ statistics, more than 11,000 unguided rockets have been fired into Israel since Israel withdrew from the Gaza strip in 2005.

The Israeli government states its military forces are acquitting their responsibilities fully, even admirably. Independent human rights groups disagree. Human Rights Watch is accusing Israel of numerous “unlawful acts” and “violations of the laws of war.” Amnesty International has alleged Israeli forces “flagrantly disregard civilian life and property”. B’Tselem and nine other Israeli Human Rights organizations wrote to the Israeli Attorney General to say Israeli military strikes “raise serious concern of severe violations of international humanitarian law.”

In understanding this tragic conflict, the larger context matters. Israel has occupied the Palestinian lands of the West Bank since 1967 (longer than the Soviet Union occupied Eastern Europe); it has formally annexed Jerusalem; and it has transferred 550,000 Israeli settlers into settlements in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, all of which violates international law and vitiates peace negotiations. Israel has continued building settlements to the point of derailing the most recent U.S.-sponsored round of negotiations, according to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry himself. Mr. Kerry called the Israeli announcement in April this year of its decision to build 700 more settlement units as “the poof moment,” the precipitating event that ended the negotiations.

Philip Gordon, the White House Coordinator for the Middle East, recently asked “How will Israel have peace if it’s unwilling to delineate a border, end the occupation, and allow for Palestinian sovereignty, security and dignity?”

If the two warring sides and their supporters abroad do not take this context into account, they can content themselves with conscience-easing narratives and avoid confronting uncomfortable realities. Some, including the Canadian government, see the issue simply as a democracy confronting a terrorist group and doing what has to be done. It has said little about restraint, international law or Palestinian rights. Others, notably Mr. Diskin, and former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, think that the Israeli government is making a very serious mistake in conducting a war of choice. In doing so, the Israeli government is isolating Israel. in global opinion, even in U.S. opinion.

Periodically “cutting the grass” in Gaza – the grotesque euphemistic term for periodic bloody invasions – produces more extremists. Further, each round of this conflict has seen Hamas (and Hezbollah) go up the technology curve to the point that all of Israel is now within range of rocket fire. Rather than launching a campaign against the Palestinian national unity government when Hamas agreed to back it, the Israeli government could and should have tried to work with it. At least they should have tested whether the new Palestinian national unity government could have been the negotiating partner whose absence Tel Aviv previously claimed to lament.

Ottawa, where all foreign policy decisions are made with an eye to their possible impact on 2015 federal election, but which are nevertheless proclaimed to be principled, has turned a blind eye to the rapidly increasing casualties. Ottawa decision-makers are apparently content to see the issue as being essentially black and white. According to the Prime Minister, “Canada is unequivocally behind Israel.” According to the Foreign Minister, “responsibility rests solely with Hamas and its allies” (a defence that got short shrift when President Vladimir Putin used it to try to shift blame for the downing of MH17). The Liberals and some all-purpose pundits have aligned themselves with this view. The assumption seems to be simply that in Israeli-Palestinian confrontations Israel is automatically right and the Palestinians are automatically wrong, international law notwithstanding.

When UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay observed that “Israel, Hamas, and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza have been down this road before, and it has led only to death, destruction, distrust and a painful prolongation of the conflict“ and she “appealed to all sides to abide by their obligations under international human rights law and international humanitarian law,” Mr. Baird accused her of creating moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas. The irony is that Ottawa’s moral absolutism does not take anyone closer to an end to the conflict or Canada any closer to an effective foreign policy. Instead of repeating its apparently unconditional support for Israel, Ottawa should be promoting compliance with international law, working with others to interrupt the mad cycle of violence in Gaza and reminding all concerned of their legal and moral obligation to protect civilians. Innocent people are dying in droves.

We'll fight them from the hospitals, we will fight them from the schools, we will fight them from the UN relief agencies, from the soccer fields, from the mosques, from the neighborhoods, we will fight them from the the Malls, from the kindergartens, from the bus stations, we will fight them to the last woman, child, old person, we will never surrender.

I know, I know, you don't view what they are doing currently, and have done in the past as a slaughter - right? That's why you urge them to step it up and kill way more of those mofo's. Who's the moron here? Look in the mirror boobie.

I run the risk of being viewed as Mr. Obvious in stating this truism but it bares repeating.

First, he misrepresents. He cuts and pastes a piece of what I have said and suggests that truncated moiety encompasses my full view. What I have actually said vis-a-vis the so-called 'peace negotiations' is I see no solutions given the issues involved, the intransigence of both sides on those issues, and frankly the bullshit that is thrown around for public consumption in this kabuki.

There are always solutions to every situation.

However, solutions requires good faith bargaining by both parties, something we have lacked for the past 45 years. Statements that 'they had a chance for peace x times and refused' are partisan bullshit or merely ignorance. On a few instances, there might have been a chance to bring about some type of agreement but they were always eventually shot down usually by a change in negotiating partners from one side or the other with those amenable to a peace process being replaced by those who had no interest in it at all. All that has ever been accomplish is an agreement to negotiate. The parties have spent 45 years negotiating about the negotiating process never quite getting to negotiating about the issues.

Second, he lies. He says Quirk is quick with the advice. This is clearly a lie. The closest I have come to offering advice is to suggest what, IMO, each side should have done 45 years ago to improve their case. The solutions I suggested were not based on subjective moral justification but on practical political considerations. However, those rear view mirror suggestions merely applied to a world of 45 years ago. That ship has sailed. There is nothing there that would apply to today's players or demographics.

Third, he is an arrogant buffoon. The examples are legion. His bigoted generalizations, his simplistic nostrums, his appeals to authority (American Thinker need I say more), and on and on, until finally his arrogant dismissal of other views based solely on his 'experience'. The latest example being a dismissal of Ash's views because Obumble has ...read it for 5 decades already. The only thing he has read for five decades is the 'Collected Works of Joseph Campbell' and the occasional large-print book of poetry. He is a failed English major with a distorted grasp of reality based upon romantic views gathered in his readings which leave him viewing the world through a bicolor filter of black and white, one that allows no thought of flawed heroes or shades of grade.

You know Rufus, I had just come back to this post to compliment quirk on his intelligent writing when I saw your comment. I am even more humbled as that one flew clear over my head on first reading. I am severely impressed. Quirk, kudos! Really, you deserve a slow clap!

Deuce has stated clearly the ONLY way there will be peace (from his side of the argument) is the total dismantling of Israel and the renaming and taking over of all the land into a majority ruled arab nation, where jews can live as a minority under the good graces of the arabs, but as deuce has said, there are scores to be settled and payback is a bitch.

This point of view of course is very similar to the Hamas who said this week: Hamas leadership have re-iterated that their goal is to destroy Israel entirely. Hamas will never live with a two-state solution.

So with that as a the basic stance of BOTH hamas and deuce, why would Israel NOT seek the destruction of the Hamas in it's entirety? REGARDLESS of the tragedy of the civilians that killed?

Israel does NOT target civilians, but they do die when they are used by Hamas as shields or are in the wrong place. SHIT happens.

Now Hamas (and Deuce) fully want to see as many jews killed as possible, This is evident since Deuce will never post anything about the hundreds of attempts to murder civilians in Israel on a hourly basis. But Deuce's and Hamas's goal remain the same.

The destruction of the State of Israel and the killing of all Jews.

Deuce of course would loudly protest my assertion that he is an anti-semite. BUt that doesn't stop deuce from inciting readers of this blog to hate the "corrupt jewish american" lobby or american zionists, or american jewish leaders…

It's a short jump from hatred of Israel to out and out calling for Jews's heads on a pike….

Just as the riots/marches in europe and chicago prove, it aint a border dispute.

"death to the jews" "hitler was right" signs say it all…

Even here, Deuce tolerates JackRat's (primarily) attempts to delegitimize who and what the Jewish people are.

All the while 30 times the amount, in the arab world, of kids, babies, women and old men are being butchered on purpose and nary is there any outcry.

Nor is there any outcry of the executions of palestinians by Hamas (recently and/or when Hamas was elected and tossed off roof tops fatah members), nor the child executions in the forced labor for the tunnels…

Interesting world view ya got there fellow…

I only hope you understand that Israel and the Jews, take your wishes and Hamas's threats and actions as the honest death wishes they are…

More than 200,000 people in Gaza have taken shelter in the UN’s schools and properties after Israel warned them to leave whole neighbourhoods that it was planning to bomb. UNRWA said it was at “breaking point”.

The Israeli military said it had targeted more than 4,000 sites in Gaza since the start of the conflict on 8 July. It had detonated three tunnels in Gaza in the past 24 hours, it added.

In fact, Isreal has killed more than 1000 non-combatant men, woman and children. It has destroyed thousands and thousands of homes, taking way the life’s work of thousands more.

Among the overnight targets were five mosques, which the IDF said housed tunnel shafts, weapons stores and lookout posts, and two “facilities” utilised by senior Hamas militants.

40 more killed, almost all civilians. No one really knows how many injured. The slaughter continues. Anyone objecting to children having their breath being sucked out of them by the supersonic shock wave of Israeli US supplied ordinance is an anti-semite.

If a child survives the Israeli shock wave created by US manufactured ordinance, fired by the IDF (from a safe distance) and can ever inhale again, she will suck in superheated gas that will strip the skin off her face, sear her naval cavity and scorch the the interior of her lungs in a most painful death.

The perpetrators, apologists and defenders of the Isreali State sponsored terrorism, death, slaughter and destruction flash the “anti-semite” card as if it were some majic kryptonite that somehow excuses their disgusting shameful atrocities and diminishes a normal human being that objects to their barbarism.

The killing, slaughter and destruction continues creating new oppurtunities for lies, evasion, justification and callous disreard of the terrbile injustice done to others that are not Jews. Anyone obecting is called an antiSemite. What filthy rubbish.

More than 200,000 people in Gaza have taken shelter in the UN’s schools and properties after Israel warned them to leave whole neighbourhoods that it was planning to bomb. UNRWA said it was at “breaking point”.

Wow, still a ways to go to match what the arabs did to the Jews in 1948.... 850,000 jews sent fleeing out of their homes of 2500 years...

Remember when it was a near-existential apocoplypse when the Isreali airport at Tel Aviv was closed for two days? Authority: Check this out: Gaza power plant damage needs at least year to repair

Published Tuesday 29/07/2014 (updated) 30/07/2014 17:51

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- The only power plant supplying electricity to the Gaza Strip was knocked out of commission by Israeli shelling and will need at least a year to repair, deputy director of the energy authority in the Palestinian territory said Tuesday.

"Gaza's sole power plant has stopped working due to Israeli shelling last night, which damaged the steam generator and later hit the fuel tanks which set them on fire," Fathi al-Sheikh Khalil told AFP.

The power authority also said that the damage could take up to a year to fix, meaning that already severe power outages in the besieged coastal enclave could be worsened even further.

As a result of an eight-year Israeli siege on Gaza that limits the supply of fuel into the Strip, power is only allotted in eight-hour stretches, with frequent cuts.

An AFP reporter saw huge fires raging near the plant Tuesday morning, noting that fire department vehicles were still unable to reach the area.

The damage of the power plant exacerbated the heavy damage to civilian infrastructure in Gaza already inflicted during the 22 days of the Israeli offensive aimed at stamping out militant rocket fire and destroying attack tunnels.

Besides the power plant, Gaza also purchases electricity from Israel, but many of the supply lines have been badly damaged by the recent fighting, Sheikh Khalil said.

"Five out of 10 of the Israeli electricity lines into the Gaza Strip were also damaged because of Israeli shelling, and maintenance still cannot reach the areas and fix them," he explained.

Gaza has been forced into dependence on Israeli electricity as a result of the siege, which has crippled domestic production and repair capabilities.

At least 17 Palestinians have been killed and 200 wounded in the bombardment of an area of Shujayea during a "humanitarian pause" unilaterally announced by Israel.

The attack came on the outskirts of the Shujayea, between Gaza City and the Israeli border, shortly after the Israeli army said it was observing a limited, four-hour Wednesday ceasefire from midday GMT, or 3pm local time.

Al Jazeera understands that at least three air strikes or artillery rounds hit the area, which is a collection of warehouses, a market, shops and homes. Residents flooded the streets to help those injured in the first explosion, about 100m from the market, exposing them to more shelling.

An Israeli military spokeswoman told Al Jazeera that it was checking the reports but added that Shujayea - which was heavilly bombarded last week killing scores of people - was not in the areas covered by its humanitarian pause.

"The first shell hit, and people immediately started evacuating the wounded," a man called Abu Maysarah told the AFP news agency. “They [the Israelis] saw them evacuating the wounded, and they struck them again.”

Ah, got hold of my wife. She is on the way home. Ran into a friend in town, and the talk talk talk began......

Soon I will be in the cool Casino among pleasant folk, and not have to read a half brain like Ashlikins for awhile.

Whooopie

Exit question: why do 'liberals' like Brain Dead Ashlikins so often take the side of the worst totalitarians ? In this case, the type of folk who like to clit clip, when it comes right down to it. Along with doing genocide, if able.

And Brain Dead Ashlikins is undoubtedly all for 'women's rights'.

Why?

We had an uber liberal in our extended family. He was a Marxist/Leninist and finally his wife left him. Always spouting the same kind of bullshit as Asklikins The Brain Dead. She couldn't take it any more.

Update: Here is what the kissing cousins of Hamas, IS, are doing in Iraq - here it is the Christians they are after, while Hamas wishes to exterminate the Jews ----

Kirsten Powers: Iraqi Christians' nightmare

Kirsten Powers 6:14 p.m. EDT July 29, 2014

Thanks to ISIS persecution, Mosul is without Christians for the first time in 2,000 years.POWERS

(Photo: Ahmad al-Rubaye, AFP/Getty Images)

Iraq's Christians are begging the world for help. Is anybody listening?

Since capturing the country's second largest city of Mosul in early June, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has ordered Christians to convert to Islam, pay jizya taxes levied on non-Muslims, or die. The extremist Sunni group is also persecuting and murdering Turkmen and Shabaks, both Muslim religious minorities.

Human rights lawyer Nina Shea described the horror in Mosul to me: "(ISIS) took the Christians' houses, took the cars they were driving to leave. They took all their money. One old woman had her life savings of $40,000, and she said, 'Can I please have 100 dollars?', and they said no. They took wedding rings off fingers, chopping off fingers if they couldn't get the ring off."

"We now have 5,000 destitute, homeless people with no future," Shea said. "This is a crime against humanity."

For the first time in 2,000 years, Mosul is devoid of Christians. "This is ancient Nineveh we are talking about," Shea explained. "They took down all the crosses. They blew up the tomb of the prophet Jonah. An orthodox Cathedral has been turned into a mosque. ... They are uprooting every vestige of Christianity." University of Mosul professor Mahmoud Al 'Asali, a Muslim, bravely spoke out against ISIS' purging of Christians and was executed.

Lebanon-based Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan, who heads the Syrian Catholic Church, called the crisis "religious cleansing" in an interview. "I want to tell American Christians to stand up, wake up and no longer be a silent majority. American-elected representatives need to stand up for their principles on which the U.S. has been founded: the defense of religious freedom ... and respect for human rights."

Mosul's Christians have fled to Kurdistan, which is providing refuge. Going back to Mosul is not an option: ISIS has given their houses and businesses away. There is nothing to go back to even if ISIS left.

The son of the founder of Hamas was interviewed on Fox, Mosab Hassan Yousef, was on Fox New being interviewed. His opinion was that Hamas was a terrorist organization. He finally got out, moving on. He said that even if Israel moved back to the '67 borders Hamas would continue as their objective is genocide of the Jews.

Magnificent Ronald and the Founding Fathers of al Qaeda

“These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.” — Ronald Reagan while introducing the Mujahideen leaders to media on the White house lawns (1985). During Reagan’s 8 years in power, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a US-supported jihad against the Soviet Union. We repeated the insanity with ISIS against Syria.